Outside noise is getting louder, can Luke Walton, Kings turn things around?

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,

Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—

While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,

As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door—

"'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door—

 Only this and nothing more."

-Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven

The all too familiar tapping has begun. It’s getting louder by the day. Kings head coach Luke Walton hears it. Whether he can make it stop is the question at hand.

After dropping four straight games, the Kings once again showed who they are. They are the same team that can beat the best of the best and then turn around and lose to anyone.

A win over the lowly Detroit Pistons on Monday snapped the Kings’ skid and quieted the noise at least for a few days, but it’s always going to be there. Until Walton and this group of players prove they can live up to their level of talent, the future of everyone involved with this franchise is going to be in question.

If the inconsistency and losing continues, Walton will be the first shoe to drop, but he won’t be the last. The news that his job could soon be in “peril” as The Athletic’s Sam Amick wrote, isn’t so much surprising as it is an acknowledgement of what has always been known.

Three seasons into his four-year contract, Walton is running out of chances. Teams go through ups and downs over an 82-game schedule, but this particular group has shown a fragility and an inability to avoid prolonged droughts.

After a pair of nine-game losing streaks last season, Walton’s job was in jeopardy at the end of last season, but general manager Monte McNair chose to stay the course. McNair and Walton speak on a daily basis and have developed a bond during their 14 months together.

That chemistry only goes so far, especially in the high stakes game of the NBA.

The fact that the Kings halted their losing streak at four games means very little. It might tell you that this particular team is slightly more stable than last season’s version in Sacramento, although it’s early to make that statement. 

For whatever reason, this group has a tendency to let go of the rope, even for moments. They do it in stretches of games and even from one quarter to the next. Until they fix this issue, then they will continue to hover just below the .500 mark.

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That may or may not be good enough to make it to the play-in tournament, but it’s not enough to establish this team as a winner or show that they are even on the right path. 

This is Walton’s challenge. He has to reach into the soul of his team and demand more. He needs to continue to search through the pieces on his bench, find a group of players that have a sense of urgency and demand that they play with that fire and cohesiveness for the remainder of the season.

If he can’t drag this out of his team, then Walton is just the first domino of many to fall. The players on the roster shouldn’t get too comfortable. The same core -- De’Aaron Fox, Buddy Hield, Harrison Barnes and Richaun Holmes -- should all be concerned at this point. 

Most of these players predate Walton’s tenure in Sacramento. While it’s a talented group, if it’s not working, it might be time to make some major franchise altering moves. 6-8 isn’t good enough and the accountability has to fall on all involved.

This is where the Kings are at after 14 games. They are a mess. There is a lack of on-court chemistry. They play hard, but their inability to perform in the final moments of a game is glaring. 

You can put it on the coach if you want, but the fact that players turn the ball over, miss assignments, fail to secure late rebounds and miss big shots in crucial moments goes beyond a guy yelling instructions from the sidelines. The team continues to preach consistency, and indeed they are surprisingly consistent, just not in a good way.

This is still an extremely small sample size, but we might have reached the moment in the program where a sliver of this season looks too familiar to 14 game segments of every other season for the last 15 years. 

If the path is set and Walton is the first fall guy for the current downturn, then what comes next? Veteran coach Alvin Gentry is likely next in line, but can he do more with the same group of players? If he can’t, what does that mean for McNair and his staff moving into next summer? Is another complete reboot coming?

It is too early to be asking these questions, but here we are...again. History is repeating itself. It’s on loop. At some point, the cycle must stop, especially after 15 years of futility. 

Walton hears the noise, even after a win against a bad Pistons team. There is a gentle rapping at his door. But that same faint sound is there for every other person involved with the Kings, they just aren’t listening for it yet.